WeloveBuzz - The Moroccan Verion of Buzzfeed

Here is an article from Wamda, about a unique website providing content geared towards Moroccan youth called welovebuzz.
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A Moroccan answer to BuzzFeed is expanding into the Arab world

credit: riadzany.blogspot.com

by Aline Mayard
March 5, 2015

Young Arabs never cease to amaze us. After Ouedkniss in Algeria, EMC in Morocco and Saily in Lebanon, it’s now Welovebuzz, a Moroccan version of Buzzfeed created by teenagers that shows the early signs of a success story.

Welovebuzz began in August 2010 as simple blog in which Driss Slaoui and his friends shared videos they would have otherwise posted on Facebook. Now, they have 30,000 fans on Facebook, a freshly launched Arabic version and a monetization strategy unique in North Africa.

We met with Welovebuzz’s two cofounders Driss Slaoui and Youcef Es-skouri.

The secrets to buzz
“WLB has been existing since 2010,” explains Youcef Es-skouri, “but it really started to become a well-known brand--with real potential--this year. We became the reference media for trendy and connected 18-25 years-old.” Numbers don’t lie; Les 10 endroits à absolument visiter au Maroc article (the top 10 places to visit in Morocco in English) has been shared over 40,000 times and the website gets between 30,000 and 200,000 shares every month, without doing any advertising. This success is due to four pilars, according to Slaoui and Es-skouri:

Unique positioning: “We’re the only ones who target the 18-25 year-olds, we offer content that’s different, articles that buzz, far from classical news, with a good dose of humor,” Slaoui said.


FULL ARTICLE

Woman's Back, Donkey's Back by Hicham Houdaifa - A Book Review from The Arabist

There is a lot of good content already on the Internet. Today, we want to draw your attention to a Morocco-related book review done by our friends at The Arabist on Dos De Femmes, Dos de Mulet by Hicham Houdaifa. 

Also if you have a second,  check out another review of  the graphic novel Amazigh, itineraire d'hommes libres, by  Moroccan artist Mohamed Arejdal and Cedric Liano on the  The Arabist site.

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Credit: aicha.graphics

Arabist Book Review: Women's Burdens in Morocco

by Ursula Lindsey


“Dos De Femmes, Dos de Mulet” (“Woman's Back, Donkey’s Back”) is a proverb in the mountain villages of Morocco. The Moroccan journalist Hicham Houdaifa chose it as a title for his first book of reportage, which focuses on the most vulnerable of Moroccan women — women who are illiterate, legally non-existent (because their births were never registered), single mothers (with no rights because their marriages were never registered) or vulnerable seasonal workers. 

With the help of some of Morocco’s impressive NGOs, Houdaifa criss-crossed the country last Fall interviewing underage brides; waitresses in Casablanca bars; some of the tens of thousands of women who pick the fruit that is exported to Europe (and are sexually exploited by their male superiors and the wealthy families that own farms)'; and others.

FULL ARTICLE